On April 15, the Josephine White Eagle Cultural Center (JWECC) and University of Massachusetts Young Socialists hosted an event discussing different struggles that indigenous communities face across the nation in the 21st century.
The event was specifically chosen by UMass Young Socialists as the club tries “to involve ourselves with as many social struggles as we can,” Francisco Fernandez, a senior accounting major and member of UMass Young Socialists, said. “As well as working class stuff. …A mix of both is pretty important, and we decide on all of our events democratically.”
Maggie Drewry, a linguistic and anthropology double major, is of Métis descent and spoke as a panelist, focusing on language loss within the indigenous communities.
Language loss happens for a few reasons, Drewry said. It can either happen when small communities are overtaken by larger cultures and those cultures’ languages are more dominant, or it can be forcefully removed by colonialism.
“Specifically in the U.S. and Canada residential schools, the use of indigenous languages was beaten out [of people],” Drewry said. “It was suppressed violently, and this created a generation of children who were violently forced to stop speaking their languages and therefore were unable to pass their language.”
Despite one indigenous language being forgotten every two weeks, according to Drewry, current and past administrations don’t care because these languages “seem useless” to them.
Language and culture are inseparable, Drewry said. “When people lose their language, they lose part of their culture permanently, especially language. So, these cultures themselves carry distinct worldviews, often embedded in language.”
This “act of cultural genocide” is why Drewry pushes for others to learn about reclaiming heritage language. When language is used and efforts are made to take back indigenous history, Drewry claims it’s saying that “I am indigenous to this land, I am reclaiming my identity.”
Mari Elsa McBride, a junior anthropology major and education minor, is a descendant of Muscogee Creek and Seminole people who, according to McBride, have been resisting colonization as long as colonizers have been on the land. She sees herself “as a continuation of that ongoing struggle.”
She currently works in land repatriation and is currently trying to repatriate a piece of land in Belchertown.
When talking about land being returned to be reclaimed by its original owners, McBride notices that white people “sometimes get a little bit uncomfortable” as they think that it means they’ll all of a sudden be homeless and be pushed off of their land.
“Wouldn’t that something?” McBride joked, saying that people fear the “karmic redistribution” of past history.
For indigenous communities, taking back their land is more than “regaining economic capital that was stolen.”
“When people literally evolve with a piece of land, [they] are inextricably genetically tied to that piece of land,” McBride said. There are full circle moments: Burying the dead in the ground, the animals eat the plants that grow from the ground that the bodies are buried from, the people eat the animals, people die, and so on and so forth.
When people are removed from a source of food and shelter where they have been living for several thousand years, they physically suffer, according to McBride.
To regain heritage, language and way of living, there are several courses of action.
For heritage, according to McBride, indigenous sovereignty is the end goal of indigenous resistance. Taking back the right to take care and make decisions by themselves through tribal laws, policies and courts would give indigenous communities protection from unfair trials through the federal government.
In language, Drewry said to “organize with your community, record what you can of your language before it goes extinct or get children …into a situation where they can be immersed and you’ll create a strong new speaker base.”
After studying in New Zealand in spring 2024 about language preservation and indigenous language loss in Māori culture, Drewry emphasized the importance of elders being brought into immersion schools called Kura Kaupapa Māori or “a language nest.”
The elders’ narrative style of speech helped teach children at a much more efficient pace as it was “easier to follow a story than be spoken at.”
Learning language as children “creates a strong foundation” of native speakers who, as they grow, will develop better skills. Once they’re adults, they can pass on language, Drewry said.
Music is also a great way to revitalize languages, Drewry said. Bands, like Alien Weaponry from New Zealand and Kneecap from Ireland, have instilled new pride in younger children to learn native languages so that they can sing along to their favorite songs.
While Fernandez grew up speaking Spanish and Antinoe Kotsopoulos, a junior poli-sci major, grew up speaking Greek, they noticed that their understanding of their language was very different compared to those who had been immersed in those language cultures most of their lives.
“The immersion from people who did grow up hearing the language constantly [is different],” Drewry said. “[And] you will end up with a different level of fluency because you’re acquiring it as basically a second native language at that point.”
Through ways of living, social media allows people to reconnect over far distances and to keep in touch with relatives they don’t see often, McBride said. It also creates a platform for people to rally, protest and show support for indigenous led activism.
In movies, books, tv shows and art, the number of indigenous representations in media has exponentially grown as well, McBride said. They are correcting misrepresentations and writing, producing and acting their own stories in ways they want to be seen and heard.
Every act of resistance is “a bullet fired for our liberation,” McBride said. And “a part of creating a future is imagining and creating different worlds.”
Kalina Kornacki can be reached at [email protected] or followed on Twitter @KalinaKornacki.
